Aztec Sun Stone
Interesting facts
- Studies by Roberto Sieck Flandes in 1939 showed that the stone was originally painted in bright blue, red, green and yellow.
- Some scholars argue it was never meant to be read as a calendar at all but served as a ceremonial basin or an altar for gladiatorial sacrifice.
- The archbishop who had it buried was Alonso de Montúfar, who wanted the memory of the sacrifices once performed on it to be lost.
- The colossal statue of the goddess Coatlicue was unearthed in the same main square in 1790, only months before the Sun Stone.
- In 1792 Antonio de León y Gama published the first scholarly study of both stones, a work that earned him the title of Mexico's first archaeologist.
- Early scholars dated the carving to the 1470s, but the Moctezuma II glyph led modern researchers to place it between 1502 and 1521.
- Its design appeared on Mexico's 20-peso gold coins first struck from 1917 to 1921 and features on today's 10-peso coin.
Why it is worth it
The Sun Stone is a basalt disc 3.6 metres across, almost a metre thick and weighing about 24 tonnes, and it presides over the Mexica Hall of Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology. The name glyph of Moctezuma II among its carvings dates it to his reign, between 1502 and 1520. Despite the popular name "Aztec calendar", it was never a working calendar: it uses the signs of time to picture the Mexica view of a cosmos that is created and destroyed in cycles.
Read it from the centre outwards. The face in the middle — usually identified as the sun god Tonatiuh, though some see the earth deity Tlaltecuhtli — has clawed hands clutching human hearts and a stone sacrificial knife for a tongue. Around it, four panels name the four earlier "suns" or worlds, ended by jaguars, wind, a rain of fire and flood; the central face itself sits inside the glyph ollin, "movement", which names the present age, Four Movement. The next ring holds the twenty day signs, from crocodile to flower, and the outer band is almost entirely taken up by two fire serpents, xiuhcoatl, with flames running along their bodies.
The stone was quarried from the lava of the Xitle volcano south of the city. After the Spanish conquest it lay face-up near the Templo Mayor until an archbishop in the mid-16th century had it buried. Workers levelling the main square rediscovered it on 17 December 1790; it was set into the west tower of the cathedral in 1791, where Alexander von Humboldt studied it, moved to the old archaeological museum on Moneda Street in 1885, and brought to its present place in 1964.
Getting there
The National Museum of Anthropology is on Paseo de la Reforma at Calzada Gandhi, in Chapultepec Park beside the Polanco district, and opens Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 18:00 (closed Monday). Mexico City International Airport (MEX) is about 12 km away.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- Luis Barragán House and Studio 1.7 km · museum
- Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City 4.9 km · opera-house
- Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral 5.8 km · cathedral
- Central Library of UNAM, Mexico City 10.3 km · library-building
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Aztec sun stone is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, and is perhaps the most famous work of Mexica sculpture. It measures 3.6 metres (12 ft) in diameter and 98 centimetres (39 in) thick, and weighs 24,590 kg (54,210 lb). Shortly after the Spanish conquest, the monolithic sculpture was buried in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City. It was rediscovered on 17 December 1790 during repairs on the Mexico City Cathedral. Following its rediscovery, the sun stone was mounted on an exterior wall of the cathedral, where it remained until 1885. Early scholars initially thought that the stone was carved in the 1470s, though modern research suggests that it was carved some time between 1502 and 1521.
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